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For Mariano Rajoy the new year begins much as the old one ended. Spain's prime minister, you may recall, played hardball with Catalonian separatists, nullifying the autonomous region's government, while declaring Catalunya president, Carles Puigdemont and his key ministers criminals.

Rajoy set a new election date a few days before Christmas, and with the wicked in-exile Carles out of the equation everything would be bueno! Si?

Dr. Pablo Ouziel is a Post-Doctoral fellow at UVic whose project in progress is, ‘Towards Democratic Responses to the Crisis of Democracy in Spain: Forms of Participatory and Representative Civic Engagement.’ Pablo is from Spain's Catalan region and has watched with the rest of the world in astonishment the unravelling of his native land these past months.

And; Iran has been the focus of America's Middle East policy since the overthrow of tyrant dictator, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. From Carter to Obama, through Reagan and the Bushes, whether the destruction of Beirut, "repatriation" of Kuwait's oil fields, or toppling of Saddam Hussein undermining the Islamic Republic has always been at the heart of the matter.

So far, no US president has dared a direct invasion of Iran, the cost of an outright war even for the globe's military behemoth being unthinkable - but where an overt campaign cannot succeed, perhaps a covert one can.And it is with that in mind, says my second guest, national security actors within the Trump and Netanyahu administrations are targeting Iran, "working in lockstep...to repeat what befell Syria over six years ago – the hijacking of minor protests and their transformation into the cover for a foreign-funded insurgency intent on toppling Iran’s elected government."

Whitney Webb and revolution of another colour, or another colour revolution for Iran? in the second half.

And; Victoria-based greentrepreneur and horticulturalist extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin bringing us up to speed with some of the good things going on in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Pablo Ouziel and a worm's turning en España.